


Fairytale

by lindsey_grissom



Series: Scenes From A Life Together [5]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: F/M, post-retirement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-08
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-28 19:29:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13910643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lindsey_grissom/pseuds/lindsey_grissom
Summary: Post-Retirement: A moment in bed with the Carsons and their books.





	Fairytale

Book open and mostly forgotten in his lap, he watches her as he finds himself doing so often, has always done it seems.

 

His fingers tingle with every brush of her own against them; she’s fiddling with them, playing really, lost in her own little world of frightening Transalvanian Counts and hunted young Ladies.

 

He’d wanted to hold her hand too, when he read the novel; had slipped into bed beside her each night, the windows closed and locked tight despite the August heat, wrapping his body around her to keep her close…to keep her safe.

 

She’d laughed at him, he remembers, but had pressed back against him just the same.

 

He doesn’t understand why she loves the story so much, how she can be so enamoured of it and in the next breath tell him how she adores Austin. How sometimes she will quote Keats to him, or Burns with her accent so very delightfully strong that no matter the years of knowing her, of hearing her, he often catches only two or three words at a time, and then tell him he must read her new favourite, stories that have him terrified of Doctor Clarkson and any man of science, for weeks.

 

He allows her to turn his hand over with no resistance, let’s his fingers fall between the spaces of her own. No gloves here in their home, nothing to keep her skin and his from brushing together.

 

  
It’s getting late now, the sun long gone down. He fights a yawn, jaw creaking with the effort to keep it closed.

 

He could happily sleep, drift off with his nose to the soft silken press of her hair, their hands clasped together against her stomach, but he knows she wishes to finish at least another chapter tonight; her little silver bookmark already holding her place several pages ahead.

 

Looking back to the book on his lap he wonders if his mind is alert enough to read, but as he cannot recall any if the pages he has already turned tonight, he does not have much hope.

 

Perhaps it is exhaustion from a day playing ball in the garden with little Billy Bates, or perhaps it is simply that he finds his wife such a distraction he cannot concentrate on much else when she is beside him, touching him.

 

It’s a wonder he gets anything done at all some days, between soft looks and softer kisses, her hand curling around his shoulder as she passes him whenever he is working at the desk.

 

The gentle click of the light, the room falling dark, makes him jump.

 

“Time to sleep, I think. You’ve been on that page for an hour now Charles.”

 

She pulls the book from his hand, passing her eyes over the page and nodding; at least she will remember where he has reached, although he’ll likely read a few pages back first, it wouldn’t do to miss out on a key moment.

 

“I thought you wanted to read more? Reach the next part.”

 

She is already stacking his book atop her own, straightening her pillow behind her. “I’ve read it before, it won’t hurt me to wait until morning.” She turns her head before laying down, smiles. “Besides, it wouldn’t do to have you falling asleep at dinner tomorrow; there’ll be talk of what kept you up all night.”

 

“They wouldn’t be entirely wrong.” He thinks of earlier, after their day clothes had come off, before their night things went on, when he kissed the back of her neck beneath her hair and she swept her small hands across his chest. When he lay her down across the tidy, perfectly tucked sheets and she caught her heel against the small of his back to topple him onto her.

 

“No,” she agrees, lifting up to press her lips to his cheeks, one kiss to each before taping the tip of her nose against his own. “But you wouldn’t like them knowing that either.”

 

He finishes their ritual with a proper kiss against her lips, his hands finding their places at her waist and cupped around the curve of her head.

 

“Neither would you.” He pulls back, brushes away the hair he has mussed, gives her side a little squeeze. “Think how your Daisy would blush, Mrs Carson.”

 

“It’s not poor Daisy I’d worry about, Mr Carson. Just imagine what Beryl would say!”

 

He wishes he couldn’t imagine, can already feel the tips of his ears flushing red. The cook has always had more insight into his married life than he likes, no matter how grateful he will always be to her and her no nonsense ways. If only she were half as embarrassed by it now, as she had been then.

 

“I shudder to think.” He gives a dramatic shake in the hope that she will giggle as she often does in response, smiles at the indelicate snort of laughter that does indeed come.

 

“Then we’d best sleep.”

 

With a last kiss to his jaw, she turns on her side, clasping his hand and pulling his arm over her waist.

 

It is only as he settles in behind her, face against her crown, that he allows the next yawn to overcome him.

 

“Goodness, Mr Carson. You could have swallowed me with that one.” Her voice is muffled now, by her own tiredness and the fluffy down of her pillow. She shuffles back a little, pressed more firmly against him from head to the light tickle of her toes against his calves.

 

“Sleep.” He whispers, eyes closed and already half-lost to sleep and her warmth. “Maybe tomorrow.”

 

He hasn’t the strength then, to ask what makes her laugh; he’ll do so in the morning.

 

In the morning.

 

As he drifts off he has the notion that despite the influx of guests they’ll have at her party later, tomorrow will be another good day.

 

Just so long as they begin it well. Her hand tightens around his; he will wake with her still in his arms. He is always assured of a good beginning.


End file.
